Of all the Abstract Expressionists working in New York in the 1940s and 1950s, Jackson Pollock was undoubtedly the most conspicuous. Even within a radical group that took abstraction to new heights, shifting the attention of the international art world from Paris to New York, Pollock’s mercurial personality and unique mode of painting stood out. Once referred to by Time magazine as “Jack the Dripper,”(1) Pollock is widely remembered as the man who appeared to perform a ritualistic dance over a canvas stretched out on the floor of a converted Long Island barn, flinging paint from...

Of all the Abstract Expressionists working in New York in the 1940s and 1950s, Jackson Pollock was undoubtedly the most conspicuous. Even within a radical group that took abstraction to new heights, shifting the attention of the international art world from Paris to New York, Pollock’s mercurial personality and unique mode of painting stood out. Once referred to by Time magazine as “Jack the Dripper,”(1) Pollock is widely remembered as the man who appeared to perform a ritualistic dance over a canvas stretched out on the floor of a converted Long Island barn, flinging paint from...